About Nels

Nels Lindahl, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is the author of Graduation with Civic Honors and founder of www.civichonors.com, which advocates development of ways to strengthen the community through volunteering networks. Nels, a Thomas and Barbara Kester Page Scholar, graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in political science and a minor in public service and civic leadership. As an undergraduate, Nels was an Ethan Allen Scholar in public administration, on the National Deans List all four years, and participated in a study on workplace literacy with Kansas City Consensus and the Public Administration Department. Nels received a master of public administration degree from the University of Kansas department of public administration. Nels holds a doctoral degree in public policy and administration from Walden University with specializations in knowledge management and e-government. In addition to academic work, Nels is spending time working on completing a new book dealing with the intersection of technology and modernity.

Right now what am I doing? Do you know where I am at this point in my life? Probably not since, you have stumbled onto the page about Nels Lindahl.

Discussing academic preparation for doctoral study or life tells you something about drive and motivation. In high school, I was captain of the debate team. The senior class even voted me most likely to be president. Then when I graduated high school, I was off to attend the University of Kansas. Maybe now is a good time to admit that in high school I wanted to be a corporate lawyer. For a short period of my life, during the early days of college (for maybe two years) I ran off to different coasts of the country trying to start different online businesses. I was at the epicenter of the dot com boom. I was also close enough to feel the dot com bust.

Something had to change and for me it was a single event. I took a class from Dr. H. George Frederickson entitled Concepts of Civil Society. Over the course of the next year thinking about the idea of civil society, I became interested in pursuing a degree in the field of public administration. Thanks to the faculty of the Public Administration Department at the University of Kansas, I decided to endeavor to enter graduate school. I would like to thank Dr. Raymond Davis for advice and guidance, Dr. Thomas Longoria for defining the importance of collaboration, and Dr. H. George Frederickson for a thoughtful introduction to the world of civil society. I started the public service civic leadership minor offered by the public administration department. During the undergraduate minor, I had the privilege and the honor of having Ray Davis as an undergraduate adviser. Later I was named a Thomas and Barbara Kester Page Scholar recipient while attending the highly rankedUniversity of Kansas Public Administration (MPA) program.

As an undergraduate Ethan Allen Scholar in public administration, I was able to complete my research practicum with Kansas City Consensus specifically working with Ginger Bohachick under the guidance of Ray Davis. The research was on the topic of workplace literacy in the Kansas City metropolitan area. I was learning the theoretical foundations of public administration while at the same time being able to apply theory to practice in a highly engaged learning environment.

I completed my MPA degree in one year. Working with Elaine Sharp I completed a thesis entitled, “A Labor Market Test of the Suburban Labor Exploitation Hypothesis.” At the same time, I was taking a full class load, finishing my thesis, and I was working. Part of my relevant professional experience was as the Administrative Intern at the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing authority. My internship involved working with Executive Director Barbara Huppee working on special projects including webpage implementation, a complete longitudinal wage and equity study, and a review and statistical analysis of the fair market rent.

In the end, my Long-range professional and scholarly goals or aspirations are to become a professor in an area with a mass transportation system. I have always been interested in working to develop the community to be able to realize the potential of what is possible. Getting a Masters in Public Administration at the University of Kansas was the right beginning of a path to getting a doctoral degree in public policy and administration from Walden Universitywith specializations in knowledge management and e-government.

I would like to teach within two fields within public administration including the intellectual foundations including ethics and E-Government. These two fields offer the ability to teach the concepts of civil society with specific reference to technology within the community.

This is a very short history.

If you are still curious, then you will have to wait for my autobiography. If you would like to contact Nels, then please use one the following methods. Nels prefers that you comment to the entry you would like to discuss, as the mechanism for communication. If you do not wish to comment publicly, then you can send Nels an email at nels <<<a>>>t nelslindahl dot com, warning this email account is very heavily filtered and might block your attempts to communicate if you use words that are malicious.